1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic still camera and an information recording apparatus that record a subject as electronic image data.
2. Description of the Related Art
There are single lens reflex type electronic still cameras in the prior art. A single lens reflex type electronic still camera is provided with a viewfinder device to which a subject image passing through a taking lens is guided by a quick return mirror, an image capturing device such as a CCD that is provided at a stage to the rear of the quick return mirror to capture the subject image and output image data, an image processing circuit that performs image processing such as white balance adjustment and γ control on the image data output by the image capturing device, a compression circuit that compresses data having undergone image processing by adopting a method such as JPEG to store them in a storage medium such as a flash memory and a monitor that displays data that has undergone the image processing. In the image processing circuit, based upon the image data output by the image capturing device, parameters including the R gain and the B gain for white balance adjustment or the gradation curve for γ control using a preset algorithm are calculated.
In such a single lens reflex type electronic still camera, the number of pixels at the image capturing device has been steadily increasing over the years to exceed a million or even two million pixels, resulting in a tendency for a longer period of time required for image processing. In particular, when calculating the gradation curve for γ control to achieve high quality image processing, a significant length of time is required for the analysis of a photographic scene. In addition, a large-scale, complex image processing circuit is required. Moreover, the length of time required for calculating the R gain and the B gain for white balance adjustment also increases when the number of pixels at the image capturing device becomes large. It is to be noted that these problems may likewise occur in various other types of electronic still cameras having an image capturing device with the number of pixels exceeding 1˜2 million.